“Any discussion of abortion is inherently difficult because it is unquestionably the taking of a human life,” said Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), opening the first of the congressional hearings on Planned Parenthood with the admission that this is not going to be easy. “That discussion becomes even more difficult when it turns to the monetary value of the body parts of more-developed unborn children.”

The hearing was the first of two House Judiciary Committee hearings titled, “Planned Parenthood Exposed: Examining the Horrific Abortion Practices at the Nation’s Largest Abortion Provider” and emotions were high all around as abortion survivors shared their stories and house members sparred with lawyers called to discuss the ethics and legality of Planned Parenthood’s sale of fetal tissue.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Goodlatte went on to say that the Center for Medical Progress’s videos “are deeply disturbing on a human level” “and force us all to engage in discussion.” He added that the committee’s concerns regarding the videos include “whether there are gaps in the law that should be filled to prevent the types of horrors in the videos” and whether federal law has been violated

Rep. John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.), the ranking member on the committee, called it a one-sided hearing and objected to the title, saying that “the real purpose of the videos is to undermine one of the nation’s leading providers of women’s health care.” He went on to claim that the videos were “deceptively edited” and should not be trusted.

And there you have the divide in Congress, and perhaps the divide in America. One side watches the videos in horror, shock and outrage. Another side hasn’t seen the videos, but has been told that they are deceptively edited, and that claim appears to be enough to get many to simply ignore them.

Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Geo.) openly admitted that he had not seen any of the videos, and that he did not intend to until he could watch the “full, unedited videos” that he called on the Center for Medical Progress to release. (He is perhaps ignorant that these already have been released.)

But when it came time for the abortion survivors to share their stories, no one could look away.

Gianna Jessen, who survived a saline abortion at a Planned Parenthood clinic in 1977, testified to the right of every unborn child to live and showed the committee a photo of a child burned by saline abortion with the caption “I lived through this.”

“Planned Parenthood is not ashamed of what they have done or continue to do,” Jessen said. “But we will have to give an account as a nation, before God, for our apathy and for the murder of over 50 million children in the womb. How many Lamborghinis were purchased with the blood of innocent children?”

Several people were moved to tears when Jessen finished her testimony by saying, “I am alive because of the power of Jesus Christ alone, in Whom I live, and move, and have my being.”

Abortion survivor Melissa Ohden also testified to surviving a saline abortion. “I’m here today to share my story to not only highlight the horror of abortion taking place at Planned Parenthood, but to give a voice to other survivors like me, and most importantly, to give a name, a face, and a voice to the hundreds of thousands of children who will have their lives ended by Planned Parenthood this year alone.”

Ohden pleaded with the committee: “As you consider the horrors of what happens at Planned Parenthood each day, I would urge you to remember my story, and Gianna’s, too.”

She was not alone in her pleas. Constitution and Civil Justice Subcommittee Chairman Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) described the video where former StemExpress employee Holly O’Donnell testified to cutting open an intact fetus whose heart was still beating.

“Mr. Chairman, I find it so crushingly sad that the only time this little baby was ever held by anyone in his short life was by those who cut his face open and took his brain,” said Franks. “For God’s sake, is this who we truly are?”

“I beg you to open your own hearts and ask yourself, what is so liberating about maiming human babies? Protecting these babies and their mothers is not a Republican issue and it is not a Democrat issue — it’s a human issue,” Franks concluded.

A plea for open hearts may be best served by our prayers: the committee’s Democrats remained unmoved.

Rep. Judy Chu (D-Cal.) said she was “outraged by the sensational nature of this hearing.” She noted that one of the Planned Parenthood affiliates in her district was “targeted” by the Center for Medical Progress videos, which she called “the latest attacks on women’s access to reproductive health care.”

“Planned Parenthood is in my DNA,” said Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.). “This [hearing] is the Benghazi of health care. It’s just wrong in 2015 … This hearing is about abortion, and I support Roe v. Wade.”

Also testifying was Priscilla Smith of the Program for the Study of Reproductive Justice at Yale. Smith was lead counsel in Gonzales v. Carhart, arguing for partial-birth abortion before the Supreme Court (and losing that case).

Rep. Goodlatte read her Justice Kennedy’s description of a partial birth abortion in which a child is torn limb-from-limb and bleeds to death. He then asked her whether dismemberment is a humane way to die. Smith replied, “I believe for a pre-viable fetus a D&E is very humane.”

“Your view of humanity and mine are very different,” Rep. Goodlatte responded.